


Set My World on Fire

by jocastafair



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Crack, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-18
Updated: 2013-09-18
Packaged: 2017-12-26 22:43:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/971166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jocastafair/pseuds/jocastafair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lewis has been acting strange recently.</p><p>Jenson has been completely oblivious from the start.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Set My World on Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Set during the lead up to the 2011 British GP.
> 
> Reposting from my LJ (because I'm going through Button and Hamilton at McLaren withdrawal or something). Slightly edited because that was ages ago and I had to read through it because I couldn't actually remember what I had written. Seems to be a common problem...sometimes I barely remember what I wrote the previous night.

Jenson could just see Lewis out of the corner of his eye. He was staring again, a puzzled expression on his face and not paying any attention to Martin next to him.

  
Lewis didn’t normally act that weird, but for the past couple of weeks he’d been unusually shy whenever Jenson was near him, averting his eyes whenever they made contact and mumbling under his breath about ‘stupid freckles’. It was fine when they were in public or a camera was nearby (like at the photo shoot, although it had taken some rather shameless posing with a parasol on Jenson’s part to cheer Lewis up), but when they weren’t Lewis had become far more subdued. Jenson figured that it was just the stress leading up to Sunday getting to Lewis. After all, his last two races were far from perfect, and as Jenson was still walking around in a daze most of the time from his win, he supposed everything about him would piss Lewis off, even his freckles. Still, it wasn’t like he could turn the damned things off at will, and the sun at Valencia wasn’t doing anything to help.

So he’d tried to be more considerate of his teammate, restraining himself from saying anything unnecessary, from laughing too loud, from smiling all the time (which was a particularly hard thing to do). But that just made Lewis give him more weird looks when he thought Jenson wasn’t paying attention.

  
Then there were the chocolates in his cockpit that morning. That had really thrown him off, because although the note attached had only said ‘Congratulations’, it was written in Lewis’ slightly messy hand, which Jenson only knew about due to that time when they got bored in a meeting and started passing notes to each other whilst the rest of the team argued. He couldn’t recall the outcome of that particular debate, which even saw Martin get hot and bothered, but he did remember what Lewis’ handwriting looked like. Slightly weird, yes, but he didn’t allow himself to think about it too much.

  
"Ah."

  
Jenson turned towards the sound. Lewis was walking towards him, a plate of churros in one hand and a large mug of hot chocolate in the other. 

  
"Morning Jenson!" said Lewis, beaming at Jenson. "Do you want some? I got extra."

  
Maybe Lewis was just trying to ruin his diet? Well, he’s too late there; a huge chocolate cake and a week in Vegas beat him to it. 

    
"That’s alright," Jenson replied, and stared as Lewis shrugged and took a sip of the hot chocolate. 

  
Yes, Lewis was acting very strange indeed. 

  
\---

  
It wasn’t just Lewis that had been acting weird recently. 

  
His dad had been hugging him a lot more recently, which, considering how physically affectionate John was before, meant that Jenson could hardly have a proper conversation with him without being hugged. Most of the time there  _was_ no conversation at all; just his dad embracing him and ruffling his hair, making him feel like a little kid again. 

  
Jessica was no help either, as she spent most of the time laughing at him as if he amused her greatly. He suspected that was part of the reason why she kept turning up to his races despite her busy schedule. Whatever the reason, he was thankful for it because he didn’t want everyone to bombard him with questions of why they broke up. He had tried to come up with a response in his mind once, but had only gotten as far as "because she’s like a sister to me" before giving up, because god knows he had enough sisters. 

  
As for the rest of the paddock, Jenson was sure that a virus was making the rounds, because that was the only explanation for why everyone was behaving so weirdly. 

  
Just the other day he had caught Fernando wiggling his eyebrows at him, and Christian was often over having long chats in the corner with Martin. Once, he had overheard them talking about what happened whenever Mark and Sebastian fought, and it had taken Jenson the better part of a day to realise that they were talking about Mark and Sebastian in a romantic rather than professional context. 

Jenson wasn’t sure why they had been talking about that, or why Martin looked so intently focused on what Christian was telling him (as if he was taking notes), all he knew was that he now had a hard timing looking at Martin and Christian together without imaging them doing each other’s hair whilst gossiping about their drivers. 

  
\---   
"Jenson."

 

His dad’s rather serious tone stopped him short. The last time he heard that he’d been close to making the biggest mistake of his life. It was his dad’s "You’re my son and I love you but you’re also an idiot" voice. 

  
"Yeah, dad?"

  
"I just want you to know, I’ll be proud of you whatever you choose to do."

  
Shit. That was exactly the same thing his dad had told him last time, which was strange because the two situations could hardly be analogous in any way. In fact, he wasn’t even sure of what the current situation was. But something was going on, if his dad was giving him the talk again.

  
"Er...alright then. Thanks dad."

  
John Button smiled and pulled him into a tight hug, just as Jenson thought that he was going to escape it this time. "You’re a good man, son."

  
Jenson nodded and pretended to understand what was happening, while Jessica laughed and made ‘awww’ sounds next to him. Traitor.

  
\---

  
Dinner that night was no less confusing. Lewis had sat next to him, even though there were plenty of empty seats around. 

  
"Hey man. So, er, qualifying wasn’t that great, yeah?"

  
No. No it wasn’t. At least Jenson’s wasn’t. Lewis did perfectly fine. 

 

"I’ll try to stay away from your back end tomorrow." Lewis was laughing nervously and sneaking glances sideways again. "So, I know I said this before...well, I hope I’ve said this before...actually, I don’t really know if I have, this past fortnight has been hectic, so I don’t know if I’ve actually told you this or just said it to someone else, but I really meant to say it to you..."

  
Jenson’s mind was spinning now. Whatever Lewis had to say to him seemed kind of ominous now. 

  
"Um," Lewis seemed to finally catch himself, "your drive in Montreal was amazing. I mean, even before what happened in the end, your race was already pretty awesome."

  
Jenson turned to look at his teammate. Lewis was smiling shyly. Jenson could just make out the gap between his front teeth. It was really cute, that gap, and made him seem younger than he really was. 

  
"Thanks. You did great today Lewis," Jenson paused, because Lewis’ smile grew wider, and thus started to really distract Jenson, "I know you’ll do well tomorrow."

  
Lewis ducked his head and muttered a "Thanks, you too" before turning back to his pasta. 

  
Jenson turned his head back and caught Adrian and Nico on the other side of the window with big grins on their faces. Nico was giving him the thumbs up, and Adrian was doing -  _something_ \- with his fingers. Jenson wasn’t sure he wanted to know what it was. 

  
Clearly he had become the only sane man left. 

  
\---

  
In the future, after Jenson's retirement, there were many things he could do. He could continue racing and undertake the tried-and-true career decision of going to NASCAR as many great F1 drivers had done so before him. He could join the BBC crew, like DC, except he never really thought that he was suited to be a presenter or a commentator. It would be like having a chocolate cake in front of him and being forced to watch others eat it. 

  
Whatever it was, the one thing he was certain of was that, just as Michael Schumacher wouldn’t have made a good weather forecaster, he would not make a good psychic, because the race was absolutely dismal for McLaren. They had no real race pace, their tires weren’t working well, and his KERS, which had always been reliable, had caused his mechanics to don their "special gloves" for the first time. 

  
Lewis didn’t fare much better. He was currently at the back of the garage chatting animatedly with Martin, who was looking more alarmed by the second. 

  
Jenson turned his eyes back to the screen showing the press conference with Sebastian, Fernando and Mark and hoped that the rest of Sebastian's year would be like his own 2009 season, when the wins dried up after Turkey. But then again he still won, so that analogy wasn’t going to do him any good. 

  
Time for dinner, then. It wasn’t that late but he needed to be somewhere quiet where he didn’t have to listen to the Red Bull team celebrate. Sebastian was his friend, sure, and Mark was a really cool guy, but there was only so much a man could take before launching an attempt to put Sebastian’s finger out of commission for a while. 

  
Some of the teams were heading back that night, but Jenson wanted to wait until the next afternoon, when it would be much quieter. It also meant that he didn’t have to wait before getting himself drunk. 

\---

  
It didn’t surprise him that the team was rather subdued that night. What did surprise him was that Lewis asked to join him in the hotel restaurant instead of going off with his own posse. 

  
They would be alone, as Mikey had decided that since Jenson didn’t need any of his magic hands that night, he would get to bed early, and his dad had headed off with the rest of the guys for a night out on the town after Jenson begged off, claiming sleepiness. He wasn’t sure if any of them bought it, but they knew not to push. 

  
Jessica had intended to join him but had, upon Lewis’ approach, laughed and told him that she was going to the beach, and then had given him a huge kiss on his cheek that made his ears ring and told him to cheer up and have fun. 

  
He didn’t know if Lewis knew that they weren’t together anymore. Actually, judging by the look that Lewis gave Jessica as she turned and left, he wasn’t even sure if his teammate liked his ex-girlfriend. He looked like a little kid that just had his favourite toy taken away. It was kind of cute, Jenson mused, to see Lewis all but pouting as he eyed Jess’ retreating figure.

 

\---

  
Twenty minutes later, they were back at the hotel. Lewis had barely spoken in that time and Jenson was getting desperate by the end, after deciding to abandon his earlier resolve to interact as little as possible with Lewis. Well, he was asked this time so it was fair to assume that Lewis enjoyed his company (or...something). It wouldn’t make sense otherwise. 

  
He had talked about the race ("It was shit, wasn’t it?"), the things the other drivers did ("Jaime was glaring at Daniel all weekend, did you see?"), and when that failed Jenson had turned to the weather, that tried and true topic of conversation that was invented especially for the British in times when the need for outward civility outweighed the mounting awkwardness of the situation. 

  
And still he only managed to coax a few monosyllabic responses from Lewis. 

  
Jenson wondered if he could fake food poisoning during the starter.

  
\---

  
"...so then Adrian rammed me off the track and sailed past, and it wouldn’t have been so bad, except we were at Monaco, and I went straight into the barriers, so of course we had to start again, which Heikki and Nick complained about because they were waaay out in front, but we did it when the same thing happened to..."

  
This was ridiculous. Lewis was now going off at a million miles a second, jumping from one thing to the next and rambling until he felt the need to take another drink of his Oloroso. It seemed like the only sure-fire way to get Lewis talking was to get some alcohol into him, but too much made him get distracted and go off in tangents. 

  
"It was pretty cool, and fun, but I don’t see myself taking that path. But you never know, I might decide one day that I’ve had enough of this and my future lies elsewhere, but I don’t think that’ll happen for a long time."

  
"Mmm." Jenson had no idea what he was talking about now.

  
"I can’t wait for Silverstone, to be honest. This past month has been really bad for me. It just kept going from bad to worse and I know most of it was my fault. No one had control over the situation but I just kept blaming the team, and I know they probably hate me now and I don’t blame them, but at the time I was so frustrated by everything and didn’t know what to do, and then Montreal was even worse and I went to talk to Christian to...I don’t know...vent, and now everyone’s saying that I’ll be leaving for Red Bull or Ferrari next year, which is total bullshit, you know?"

  
"Yeah."

  
"No one’s stupid enough to let me be on the same team as Fernando, and if I was Sebastian’s teammate we might end up killing each other one day, even though he’s a cool guy. Of course I’m not going to leave McLaren, but now Martin’s looking at me like I killed his puppy, and the more I deny it to the press the more they’ll be convinced of it. Did you know that someone had done a mock-up magazine cover of me in a Red Bull suit? I honestly thought I was going to die."

  
Lewis let out an indignant huff. 

  
"And then someone suggested that I was visiting Christian because I’m secretly having an affair with him -"

  
That last forkful of roast lamb was a particularly bad idea. 

  
\---

  
Lewis was drunk, that much was certain. He was now staring dreamily up at Jenson as the latter tried to keep both of them upright as the elevator doors opened. 

  
"Uh, Lewis, where’s your key?"

  
"Hmmmmm? You know, you’ve got really nice eyes, man. Are they real?"

  
Right. Obviously this wasn’t going to work. He didn’t even know Lewis’ room number or which floor he was on, and none of his friends were around. 

  
At that moment, Fernando slipped in just before the doors closed. The edges of his eyes crinkled in amusement as he took in Jenson and his human barnacle, who was now mumbling into Jenson’s shoulder that he was " _sooooo_ pretty".

"A good night, yes?"

  
"Yeah," mumbled Jenson, as Lewis’ left hand made its way to clutch at the front of his shirt. He didn’t want to think about where Lewis’ other hand was on its way to at the moment. "By the way, do you know his floor?"

  
"I would have thought that you knew." Fernando looked confused, but before Jenson could explain a smile broke out on his face.

 

"Ah, so you both sleep in your room then. Why the sudden change tonight?" he asked, a lascivious grin on his face. "Did you break the bed or something?"

  
Did they... _what_? Clearly he was drunker than he realised, because he could’ve sworn that Fernando had just suggested that he and Lewis were together. Like, _together_.

  
His shock must have shown on his face because the irritating man started laughing. 

  
"Don’t be so surprised Jenson! It’s not such a hard thing to figure out, I’m sure most of the paddock knows by now. It’s rather sweet, really, because it was getting annoying for a while when he was pining after you."

  
The doors opened then and Fernando stepped out after waving goodbye. 

  
Jenson stood in the elevator with Lewis now half-asleep and drooling on his collar, and it was only until the doors opened on his floor that he realised what had happened.

  
\---

  
Jenson wasn’t sure what the protocol should be when one wakes up in the same bed as a colleague that had apparently been pining after him for a while. It wasn’t like they did anything the night before; Lewis was too out of it to do more than collapse on the bed and clutch a pillow to his chest, whilst Jenson spent a good hour panicking about what Fernando had told him before realising that he was neglecting the other man and probably should take Lewis’ shoes off (and his socks, but that’s all!) to get him more comfortable.

  
Lewis had looked impossibly young asleep on Jenson’s hotel bed. He  _was_ young, Jenson supposed, only twenty-six, but managed to accomplish more than Jenson had in his career so far. The Great British Hope. It was something that he could never live up to, but then Lewis came along and made it seem easy. Jenson had long given up any feelings of resentment towards Lewis.

  
He had spent so long musing over Lewis’ various attributes (including his rather long eyelashes) and how he felt about dating Lewis (hypothetically, of course, and contingent upon whether Fernando was actually telling the truth) that he fell asleep at his post, which led to him to the strangely pleasant but still unfortunate situation of waking up with Lewis in his arms after the younger man had apparently substituted the pillow for him sometime in the night. 

  
Lewis was latched on tightly, both legs tangled with Jenson’s. Jenson had never held another man like that before much less another racing driver. He was used to soft curves, not firm muscles, but he had to admit that it felt quite nice, and Lewis’ lack of hair was a much welcomed departure from being suffocated by masses of strawberry-scented curls that tickled his chin and made him sneeze occasionally. 

 

Lewis fit him nicely. 

  
With that thought, Jenson rested his arm over Lewis’ and drifted off to sleep.

  
\---

  
In hindsight, Jenson probably should have just untangled himself and left the room. It certainly would’ve saved him a lot of bruises. Instead he ended up on the floor after a furious and cursing Lewis kicked him awake and ran out of the room. 

  
Jenson had been hoping that Lewis wasn’t telling everyone about how Jenson took advantage of him when he was drunk, because that was absolutely  _not_ true. He couldn’t be expected to make rational decisions at three in the morning after he’d been told life-altering information!

  
But no, Lewis hadn’t done that. Instead he just ignored Jenson. Well, it was hard to tell, since they were always in the spotlight leading up to the British Grand Prix. But Jenson could tell because during that time when they were choosing photos for the exhibition, Lewis was just speaking in his general direction rather than _at_ him.

  
Jenson was desperate, and desperation was known to make him do inexplicable things. That was the only explanation for what he ended up doing. 

  
\---

  
"Fernando, I need your help."

He was going to regret this. Jenson knew it was a bad idea but no one else would give him a straight answer.

  
"Ah, trouble with Lewis, I presume?" Fernando asked. "Is he angry at you for something and refusing sex until you apologise? Let me tell you, even if it was completely his fault, _you_ have to apologise because he’s not going to let you win, and getting him horny so he’ll get desperate and jump you will not work either."

  
"Wai-  _what_?" This was not going the way Jenson had envisioned the conversation would start. "That’s not what I’m talking about! And how do you know that about Lewis? I didn’t know you two were involved!"

  
"We weren’t. I’m just guessing. He seems the type, you know. Feisty."

  
"Right...well, I wanted to ask about what you said in Valencia, Lewis pining after me and all that. Is that true?"

  
"Ah..." Fernando finally let out, "so you’re not together?"

  
"No, Fernando. Why do you think that? Does anyone else think that?"

  
"Well, I thought Lewis finally got the answer to his question of whether or not you had freckles in places other than your face because he stopped moaning about it every time we talked." 

  
Great. Now Jenson was imagining Lewis moaning. Knowing Fernando, he was doing it on purpose.

  
"Although now that I think about it he may have stopped because I threatened to break your nose if he kept talking about you, and I just assumed it was because you two were finally together."

  
"Finally?" he asked, exasperated. "Fernando, how long has this been going on?"

  
"Since you became his teammate, I reckon. Before that he kept talking about beating you in the race. Two months afterwards he could only talk about beating you off."

  
Jenson closed his eyes and tried to will the new images away.

  
"Fernando, please," he said, trying to remain calm, "I’m going through a very tough time right now."

  
"Not sure if you want Lewis? Yes, very hard question."

  
"I thought he was straight!" And then he failed. "I’m straight as well! And our careers; what are we supposed to do about that? What if it gets out?"

  
"Ah, but since when did love have anything  to do with gender, hm? If I met a sexy Spanish boy and I fell in love, I would marry him!" he announced. 

  
"I...I’m sure you would."

  
"As for your career, it doesn’t matter, does it? You’re both too good to let your personal lives interfere with your racing. Really, he’s been infatuated with you for a while now and he certainly hasn’t gone easy on you on the track. Ask Mark and Sebastian."

  
He was  _not_  going to ask Mark and Sebastian.

  
"You make it sound so simple." He sighed.

  
"And you are just over-thinking it," Fernando retorted, "you must do what feels natural Jenson!"

 

Great. He didn't need a motivational speaker now. 

  
"...Okay. Listen, I’ve gotta go." He really needed to get out of this conversation before Fernando went any further.

  
"I am glad you chose to come to me about this, Jenson!" The man sounded inordinately cheerful, as if Jenson wasn’t having some big gay crisis over his teammate. "I can be your love adviser!"

  
"Yeah, maybe." Fuck no. Then again, the man  _had_ helped him...somewhat. "Fernando, if I ignore you the next time I see you, rest assured that it’ll only be because this entire conversation has been unbearably awkward and not because I don’t like you."

  
"Ah, thank you!"

  
Damn him.

  
\---

It must be quite telling, Jenson realised, if he felt more comfortable amongst a dozen dripping-wet water polo players in tight Speedos than sitting next to his teammate, signing autographs. He had been conscious of Lewis’ every move, from the way his leg jolted when his knee had accidentally touched Jenson’s to the measured way he turned his head to face him.

  
It was driving him crazy. He was seriously considering Fernando’s advice to just apologise for everything even if it wasn’t his fault (ignoring the fact that they weren’t a couple, of course, and the goal of the endeavour was certainly _not_ to get into Lewis’ pants).

  
He had intended to talk to Lewis right after the autograph event. Instead, he had balked at the last second. It may have been because he was utterly terrified of speaking to Lewis in private, or it might have been because his mind had chosen that moment to relive his meeting with the water polo players. 

  
Whatever it was, he didn’t go through with it and so had ended up at a bar in the airport, trying to get himself just drunk enough to get through the flight back. Lewis would be joining him, which was the first time in a while that they were on the same flight. It wasn’t going to be good. Sure, they were flying first class, but Jenson was sure that the awkward energy between them, which had mutated into a giant, uncontrollable thing, could easily transcend the extra distance between the first class seats. 

  
Jenson closed his eyes and tipped the rest of his beer down. When he opened them again, he was immediately grateful that he had swallowed most of it already because Lewis was sitting opposite him with a rather bashful look on his face.

  
"Hey Jenson."

  
Oh no. He wasn’t ready for this; he needed to have his wits about him if there was going to be a confrontation!

  
"Listen, uh..." Lewis started, fidgeting slightly in his seat, "I know things have been a bit awkward between us lately."

  
A  _bit_ awkward? Jenson wondered just how awkward things could get between Lewis and someone else before the man realised that the tension levels between them were rather substantial. 

  
"I just wanted to apologise for that, because I sort of panicked and...overreacted, that morning, and I really shouldn’t have. It was nothing, yeah? And I hate what it’s done to us, because we’re meant to be a team and I really don’t want things to get so weird between us that one of us is forced to leave."

  
Yeah. In Jenson’s world it was already that weird. 

  
"So, everything’s cool between us, yeah?" Lewis smiled at him.

  
He looked like an eager puppy begging for approval. Jenson had a brief mental image of Lewis on his knees begging, which he blamed entirely on Fernando. But then suddenly, his mental-Lewis was clad only in a tight, black Speedo and batting his eyelashes, which was _entirely_ the product of Jenson’s warped mind. And was that water running down his chest? Oh fuck!

  
"Uh...Jenson? You okay man?"

  
What? Oh, yeah.

  
"I’m fine," he bit out, "just a bit tired."

  
Lewis’ grin widened. "Yeah me too. But it’s a good thing everyone’s getting so buzzed about Silverstone. It’s going to be awesome."

  
The flight back was slightly more bearable. Jenson ended up reclined in his seat whilst listening to Lewis’ stories of racing with Nico.

  
\---

  
"So how was your date with Lewis?"

 

Jenson panicked.

  
"Date? What date?" The thoughts started whirring in his head. Was the bar thing in Hungary a date? "We never went out on a date! Who told you we went out on a date?!"

  
"Calm down, Jen," Jessica explained, "I was talking about Valencia. Dinner at the restaurant?"

  
"Ah, that." 

  
Ha. Funny woman, that Jessica. Really.

  
"Well, the first half was completely awkward because he wouldn’t say anything, and then in the second half he got drunk and poured out his entire life story." He sounded frustrated, even to his own ears.

"And now?"

  
"I think he’s still sort of avoiding me because he remembers telling me that he used to have a teddy-bear called Snuggles."

  
"Did he also have a pet pony?" she asked, in a completely deadpan voice. 

  
Jenson chuckled, feeling the knots in his temples loosening. 

  
"Fernando told me that Lewis has been in love with me for well over a year now."

  
"I know," she sighed. "Well, I didn’t  _know_ , but he was quite obvious about it."

  
"Yeah, apparently everyone knew," he said, "but why didn’t I know? Why didn’t anyone tell me?"

  
‘Well, I suppose it was because everyone thought that you would get it on your own time. You do smile and stare at him a lot. Eventually it was all going to come out and you would secrete him away in your room and spend the next week ravishing him."

  
"Really?" That was certainly news to him. He didn’t know his apparently latent homosexuality was that obvious to everyone.

  
"Mm. Martin even drew up a contingency plan just in case you two ended up out of action because of that. I'm pretty sure he had the team go through emergency drills and everything. And especially this past month, with how weird you’ve been acting around him."

  
" _I’ve_ been acting weird?" he cried, waving his arm around even though she couldn’t see him. Whatever. She would be able to sense it. " _He’s_  the one that’s been acting weird since Monaco! _Everyone’s_ been acting weird!"

  
"No," she said slowly, as if to a small child, "Lewis hasn’t changed. You just started noticing him differently. And everyone else has been acting weird because _you’ve_  been acting weird."

  
And was that really it? Was Lewis really not acting weird at all and it was all Jenson? But why? Nothing had really changed between them, although now that he thought about it, if Lewis had been acting the same way towards him since they became teammates, it would mean that Fernando was telling the truth and Lewis had been in love with him since then. And when he did seem to change (or rather, when Jenson "started noticing him differently", apparently), it was right after Monaco when he had seen Lewis looking over some race data alone in the garage and noticed that he looked rather cute when he was concentrating hard on something and - 

  
Oh  _fuck_. 

  
"Hello? Jenson?"

  
_Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck._  


  
He was so blind. 

  
"You know, you can fantasise about him in your own time, I have to get to a meeting soon." 

  
Right, Jess was still on the phone. 

  
"So what do I do now?" he asked cautiously, as other images of Lewis over the past year came rushing into his head.

  
"Well, do you like him?"

  
"I guess..."

  
"I’m gonna have to need something more than ‘I guess’ Jenson," she replied, and Jenson could feel her "I’m serious" gaze over the phone.

  
"Ok, fine, yes I think I like him. A lot."

  
"And you want to date him?"

 

"Yes." There was no going back on this now.

  
"And you want to have your wicked way with him?"

  
"Uh...eventually, yes. I’m still not sure about that yet."

  
"We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it." He could hear her smiling. "One life-altering revelation at a time."

  
\---

  
Could he actually have sex with Lewis? If they were to have a relationship they would have to do so sometime. And there were so many different kinds - celebratory sex if they do well, comfort sex if they don’t do well, angry sex if one of them takes the other out, sneaky sex on the starting grid after everyone left, boss’ office sex, McLaren factory closet sex...so many possibilities (and perhaps a bed or two would make its way into the equation as well). 

  
But first things first: could he actually have sex with another man?

  
Jenson was a scientist. Well, ok, maybe not, but he could be quite methodical when the situation called for it, and it most _definitely_ did in this case. The first step was to see if he was sexually attracted to other men (although he still sort-of thought that if he _was_ then it should’ve made itself known before he entered the fourth decade of his life). 

  
The first video he clicked on was set in a garage. Normally he didn’t take notice of where these things were set, but he was so wound up that when he saw a car his mind immediately went to work imagining him and Lewis going at it on one of their cars. 

  
The video wasn’t too bad, it certainly didn’t make him try and gouge out his eyes, and the close-ups were quite nice. The one in his mind of he and Lewis was better though.

 

Jenson looked down at his lap. 

 

First step: success!

 

(Reward: cake!)

  
\---

  
Next, he needed to test it out in real life. So he did what any sane person in his situation would do: he stripped and asked Mikey for an oil massage. As a testament to his fortitude the man remained as unflappable as ever. Instead, he had blinked once before telling Jenson to lie on the bed whilst moving towards the iPod dock.

  
Ten minutes later Jenson declared the entire experiment a mistake.

  
Turned out he wasn’t interested when oiled up and listening to his trainer talk about the tennis. The ambient whale music in the background did nothing to help either.

 

Second step: unmitigated failure.

 

(Punishment: no cake.)

  
\---

 

Problem: he only had two steps. He really didn't that far ahead.

  
Okay, so maybe he wasn’t completely gay. 

 

He still thought Jess was pretty hot and was fairly sure that he still enjoyed sex with women. 

  
But he wasn’t completely straight either. True, that incident with Mikey was a bit of a disaster, but he supposed it was because the man was like family to him now so it was bound to be weird. Also, he found Nico quite attractive, even when he stopped shaving to prove that he could look manly but had ended up, as DC said, looking like a werewolf. 

  
He certainly found Lewis attractive, from that gap between his front teeth and the genuine joy on his face when he laughed, to his passion for racing and his family. 

  
So he wasn't completely gay or completely straight, and he was okay with it. 

  
\---

  
The days leading up the Silverstone were spent in a haze.

 

When he wasn’t doing promotional events, and sometimes even when he was, fantasising about Lewis became the main way to occupy his time. But at the back of his mind, behind all the images of Lewis naked and the various scenarios that he wanted to test out, there was still the question of how having a relationship with his teammate was going to work in real life. It could blow up at any second, and judging from Mark and Sebastian’s relationship it often did. And yet, a few days (or hours, or minutes) later, their hands were back to being all over each other. It was rather sweet, in a disturbing and sometimes life-scarring kind of way.

  
He ended up cornering Mark at the back of the Red Bull garage, hoping that no one had seen him go in and wanted to speak to him.

  
"Mark," he started, "how does it work? You and Sebastian?"

  
Mark stared evenly at him. "The sex? Well, firstly you have to figure out -"

  
"What?!" Jenson shrieked, "No! Not that. I’m talking about how you manage to have a relationship with all  _this_ going on." He waved both his arms around, gesturing at everything.

"So you’re finally going to propose to Lewis? Fernando was telling me earlier about your Spanish wedding."

  
"Uh...no." Really, he was never going to Fernando for anything _ever_ again. "Well, I’m not going to propose to him, I’ll just be telling him that I’m in love with him and want to see him naked."

  
Okay, he wasn’t going to phrase it like that, but it was still early. He had time to come up with a plan and a speech. Maybe he’ll get Adrian to play the piano in the background. Far,  _far_ away in the background, and blindfolded, so that he couldn’t hear or see anything. He could be Jenson's piano-playing slave.

  
"Jenson..." 

  
He turned his attention back to Mark and was taken aback by the serious expression on the other man’s face. 

  
"It’s not going to be easy." Mark sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Always hiding, not having the freedom to do what you want when in public, fearing that one fight between you could affect your performance and destroy the partnership and the team." 

  
This wasn’t helping Jenson at all. Although, he supposed, he shouldn’t have expected anything else if he chose to come to Mark. He liked the guy a lot but Mark could be quite pessimistic at times. Maybe afterwards he should find Sebastian.

  
"And worse of all -"

  
It gets worse?

  
"- you end up second-guessing yourself. Sure, I feel happy when he wins, but I still can’t help comparing myself to him. It’s one thing to do that when you’re just teammates, but it’s worse when you’re in love with them, and most of the time I feel like I’ll never be able to measure up."

  
Mark paused, and then broke out into a smile. 

  
"But it’s worth it."

  
Jenson stared at him, slightly stunned.

 

"It’s all worth it, as long as I get to be with Seb. At the end of the day I couldn’t care less about everything else, as long as I have him and he’s happy." Mark said, a soft smile on his face as he ducked his head. "And I know we’ll make it work."

  
For the first time since he accepted his feelings about Lewis, Jenson’s trepidation about confessing to him vanished. Okay, he was lying, but it was now probably only a five on the scale instead of the ten he was operating at previously.

  
"Mark, thank you. Really, I -"

  
"Just go get him, Jen. You’ll see what I mean."

  
Jenson smiled and thumped Mark’s shoulder before uttering a "Wish me luck!" and turned to walk out. It was only when he rounded the corner that he saw Sebastian leaning on the other side of the wall, grinning goofily with a dreamy look in his eyes. 

  
"Mark..."

  
Jenson chuckled as he passed. "Yeah, go find Mark."

  
\---

  
It was strange how different things were now, barely two weeks after Valencia. He was desperate to tell Lewis but he also wanted to do it right.

  
So he had waited until they were both free for the night and dragged Lewis to the hotel’s rooftop. It was a strange location, yes, but it was the only one that would be empty of people. At least he hoped it was, because he really couldn’t think of another place to have this conversation. He had briefly considered one of their rooms until he remembered what had happened last time they ended up in the same hotel room.

  
Jaime and Daniel were at the end of the corridor, whispering furiously and frowning at each other before one of them (Jenson wasn’t sure who) started kissing the other. Lewis let out a surprised yelp and craned his head back as they went past. 

  
Fernando, annoying man that he was, was waiting by the lift and started smirking when they got there. No way was he going into the elevator again with Fernando and his eyebrows. Instead, he pushed open the door to the stairs as Fernando sent him a wink, which Lewis didn’t catch, thankfully, as he was still gaping at the two guys, who were by now stumbling back along the hallway to a room (presumably). Jenson hoped they were going into a room. 

Half an hour from then, hopefully he and Lewis would be in the same position. 

  
\---

  
"Lewis. I need to talk to you."

  
"Um, yeah, I kind of got that, being pulled up to the roof and all." Lewis grinned. "Unless you wanted to stargaze, I’m up for that too."

  
"Uh..." Jenson’s mind was already getting off track.  _Naked stargazing_. Damn Lewis and his fantasy-inducing suggestions.

  
"So what did you want to talk to me about?"

  
Okay. This was it. 

  
"I know I’ve been acting a bit strange for the past couple of months, and I’m sorry about that. It wasn’t about you...well, it was entirely about you, but not in a bad way. And the thing is, it took me so long to realise what was wrong, not that it was  _wrong_ , of course. And I’m sorry for being so oblivious, because apparently everyone knew apart from me, and it’s taken me a while to figure it out, but now I have, and I can finally tell you."

  
Fuck. That was crap! His eloquence (what little of it was present) had abandoned him and he was now completely incoherent around the man. 

  
"Er...okay?" Lewis looked puzzled. Jenson didn’t blame him. He took a deep breath to calm himself and tried again.

  
"I like you, Lewis. I really, really, really like you. I can’t stop thinking about you, and all I want to do right now is take you in my arms and kiss you."

  
"You mean -"

  
"I’m in love with you."

  
Silence. Lewis was staring at him wide-eyed, his mouth a perfect ‘o’. 

  
Jenson was just beginning to panic until Lewis burst into a smile. God, he looked so adorable like that.

  
"Is this why Fernando was talking to me about double weddings the other day?"

  
_What_?! That smug  _bastard_!

  
"Uh, I think that’s only if he finds a sexy Spanish boy to marry."

  
Lewis laughed, a hand rubbing the back of his neck and the corners of his eyes crinkling.

  
"Actually, let’s not talk about Fernando now," Jensen continued, "or ever again, because I _really_ don’t want -"

  
"I’m in love with you too."

  
Jenson stared at Lewis.

 

Even though everyone else had been telling him that Lewis liked him it hadn’t really felt real until just then, Lewis softly smiling at him with an amused glimmer in his eyes. 

  
He’d never expected things to turn out that way; it was never something that he had thought about before, but it was by far the best thing that had ever happened to him.

  
Jenson reached over one hand and took Lewis’, his other going to rest on the back of Lewis’ neck, smiling as the distance between them closed.

  
Lewis, as Jenson soon found out, tasted like sweet tea.


End file.
